Motivational Interviewing Training (in person)

The course is interactive and immersive and can be adapted to the needs of a particular organisation. A blended learning format may include online training resources and live demonstrations, depending on organisational needs and budgets.

Prior to the course, participants receive a short questionnaire to complete. The information they provide, is used to help develop the course and make it a more personalised course to this group of people. For example, we can gain insight into their current practice and examine the language they currently use to describe their clients or service users. Furthermore, we can also gain insight into the challenges they face in their workplace settings and what their individual learning needs are.

On the course we often explore:

• A consultation strategy
• Communication skills exercise, which explores blockers and facilitative skills to provide communication skills and strategies
• Motivational interviewing principles and practices to help develop new skills and practical techniques
• We spend some time discussing and practising skills and key learnings.
• End with evaluations

All participants are encouraged to practice aspects of motivational interviewing with their colleagues in a non-threatening and safe environment. They are encouraged to work with real life examples or with the creation of a typical service user or client they come across routinely.

The course is run with a small cohort of practitioners to encourage group participation. Ideally, the group size is between 8 and 10 people.

The motivational interviewing course is for health, social care and wellbeing personnel, involved in health promotion and behavioural change conversations with patients/clients.  For example, podiatrists, practice nurses, dieticians, occupational therapists and physiotherapists and smoking cessation teams, whose work settings span across health and social care organisations and councils.

Some participants explain that they received communication training some time ago and want to refresh their knowledge and skills.

Participants are encouraged to complete an e-learning introduction to communication skills course if they have had no prior communication skills training.

A number of barriers may prevent people from listening to advice or taking a more proactive lifestyle change. Additionally, professionals supporting patients to make lifestyle changes can often take a more directional, dictatorial, or judgemental approach towards behaviour change, which is likely to have little impact on enabling behavioural or attitudinal change.

Alternatively, helping people take responsibility for their own health and lifestyle choices can be more meaningful and lead to long-term positive change through behaviour change conversations.

However, supporting service users or clients to consider lifestyle choices that may impact their health can be challenging.  It is common for course participants to explain that they want to become more skilled at:

• handing resistance to change,
• actively listening
• gathering information
• creating a thinking environment for clients and service users and
• developing rapport

Throughout this course, we will explore these bullet points, to help you have more constructive conversations. The course will also help you appreciate that it is not your responsibility to change someone’s behaviour. Rather than trying to fix people and direct them, you will learn how to help people take responsibility for their own health and lifestyle choices, which can be much more beneficial and lead to better longer term outcomes.

This evidence-based course is designed to use a variety of learning methods and leans towards more reflective and experiential learning rather than purely didactic teaching.

The aim of the course is to support professionals who work directly with clients and service users, to develop their communication and motivational interviewing skills to improve health outcomes. The focus will be on enhancing information-gathering and active listening techniques, and enabling participants to engage in more effective, client-centred conversations.

The main goal is to build participants’ confidence in their ability to communicate clearly and empathetically, particularly when supporting individuals to reflect on and consider changes that could improve their health and wellbeing. Motivational interviewing skills can support adults, children and young people experiencing mental health problems.

The course is designed to facilitate experiential learning in a safe and supportive environment. Course participants are encouraged to generate shared learning opportunities and engage in open discussions with colleagues. Participants will have the opportunity to practice their communication skills during the workshop to help consolidate their learning.

Learning objectives:

• Explore challenges and barriers towards smoking cessation conversations.
• Learn facilitative communication skills to enable them to gather information, give information and to actively listen.
• Develop their knowledge of a motivational interviewing approach and have the opportunity to practice this approach, and apply their skills.

• Course participants will be emailed and asked to complete a pre-course survey to help us individualise the course to the groups needs.
• Prior to the course, a participant handbook will be emailed to participants. The handbook can be read prior to the course and it can be used as a reference tool, post course to help consolidate learning and provide a useful reference book.
• At the end of the course, course participants are asked to complete an evaluation form.
• A course certificate is issued once participants have completed the course requirements and can be used for revalidation portfolios, if required.

The course provides health and social care practitioners an opportunity to reflect on their current communication and motivational interviewing skills and enables them to identify skills and strategies to enable them to coach clients more effectively and efficiently.

Practitioners are also encouraged to consider how they currently perceive and describe the behaviour of their clients or service-users and to consider how they may instead provide a safe and encouraging environment to support change talk.

It is common for practitioners to want to fix problems and, or behaviours. Consequently, they fail to provide opportunities for people to learn for themselves and identify their own personal goals and motivations for change. The whole premise of the course is to practice new techniques to implement the principles of motivational interviewing.

If you require any further information about the course and want to discuss options with us, please contact us via our website and we can schedule an online meeting to discuss your needs in detail.  Alternatively email us at: [email protected]

As our courses can be tailored to suit different organisations, locations, and delivery requirements, it can be difficult to provide an accurate price without first discussing your needs. We are, of course, happy to provide a rough estimate initially, however we always recommend a conversation first so that we can ensure the training is appropriate for your organisation.

Please note that contacting us for information, advice, or a quotation does not place you under any obligation to proceed with a booking.